Most NAS servers essentially do one thing – store data and make it available over a network, usually for the home or small business. It's not a complicated job, but it is an essential one, and suits most users. Computing manufacturer EZY Technologies, has other ideas, seeing the humble NAS server as having more to offer and …

Bin dun

RE: Bin dun

In one short sentence you summed up everything that is wrong with Mac fans. So you're happy to pay more for something with no additional spec/functionality simply because it looks prettier? When 9 times out of 10 it will probably be tucked away in a corner or a cupboard etc? (I'm not saying this is the case for all Mac products by the way, some of them really are superior. But in many cases, such as this, they aren't)

@DimpledDisciple

ARGH, for Bob's sake...

Please only let people who are at least vaguely technically competent (and able to write worth a damn) review such gadgets.. Such gems as

"you create files, map your data to them, and save them"

"And once you've set up your network, you don't necessarily have to have your computer switched on to use the MyXerver. If you set up a lengthy Bit Torrent download, for example, you can switch your computer off, and the MyXerver will carry on accepting the data until the job's done."

..pose far more questions than they answer due to the monumentally inept phrasing. The manufacturer's press release is probably more informative, scarily.

Ah, Tom, Tom...

I'm, afraid I am not a Mac Fan, but given the description in the review of the UI for the MyXerver, and having seen the Time Machine (stars and all) in action, I would say I'd probably pay the extra for one of them if I needed this type of kit.

And yes looks do count, especially if you have to persuade your wife to keep it somewhere visible and prominent.

Boot time

And how long / well does it work on bootup. Great if you are someone with it on 24/7 - but these days we try to save power by being off when not needed. Then it needs to be nearly instant on. My old Qnap takes a good few seconds...

Time Machine

@hammarbtyp

Dude, you missed the point totally. Blinded by IT snobbery no doubt. A 1TB NAS at that price is going to be compromised on features for the price point. Did you not read the WHOLE article? Or take in the general point of this device? It's a NAS on the cheap with features taken out to maintain the quality of the core function. The person this is aimed at won't know what RAID is, won't care when they are told and WON'T pay the additional cost to have the function. Regardless of the safety it brings. Get over it.

2 Questions

"Back-up speed however, isn't the MyXerver's strong point. We attached a USB 2.0 Toshiba hard drive and copied a 5GB file in 59 seconds. The same file copying to the MyXerver took over five minutes – so it's not ideal if you're in a rush"

Was this via your wireless or plugged into your router?

"If you set up a lengthy Bit Torrent download, for example, you can switch your computer off, and the MyXerver will carry on accepting the data until the job's done"

@hammarbtyp

Supported printers?

By no means unique...

Nor even a novel idea although it's nice to see this functionality in a smaller package. This sort of thing has been part of the core functionality in SME-tergetted NAS boxes from the likes of QNAP and Drobo for a very long time.

Raid

Just...

...chuck a big drive into an old PC and install FreeNAS. Works a treat. I've got three P2 433Mhz machines set-up. Once you've installed the software just shove it in a cupboard somewhere. Dot a few homeplugs around the place and you've got a wired connection where ever you need it (for when the neighbour fires up the baby monitor taking down your wireless nw).

Not pretty (sorry macTards) but it is cheaper than this and works at least as well, plus you get extra brownie points for the hardware re-use.

@Alex

What the hell are you smoking? A FreeNAS system makes sense only if you don't value aesthetics or peace and quiet. The only "old PC" I have access to makes a noise not entirely unlike a Harrier Jump Jet in full flow. (And has similar energy requirements too.)

As for the aesthetics issue: where do you think most people's routers *are*? In a convenient basement, or a cupboard under the stairs? Or -- like mine -- next to the phone socket in the living room, about two feet from the TV? If I'm going to have to stare at the bloody thing all the time, it'd damned well better be small, quiet and unobtrusive! No FreeNAS box is going to be that unless that old PC happens to be an old Mac mini. (And if I could afford to leave one of those gathering dust in an old shoebox, I'd have bought a bloody Time Capsule in the first place!)

Being easy to use is a given: it's the 21st Century for f*ck's sake; stop accepting shoddy design when there's no reason to suffer so! Apple have *done* the R&D already. Just make something almost, but not quite, as good, for a bit less.

@Alex

I gotta agree with Sean. You've missed the point of this device. It is aimed at Joe Average with two kids and no spare room to pile his IT equipment in. This is aimed at the bloke in the house, and it is a bloke who is likely to buy this lets not get all 'correct' about it, who realises he and his two kids have music and videos spread out everywhere and he wants to centralise it, and has a very vague idea how to do it, but doesn't want to get bogged down in any technicalities where ever possible.

This is the device aimed TOTALLY at him.

I suspect, as with the person complaining about lack of RAID, that IT snobbery has kicked in because this device effectively is dumbing down your knowledge and what used to be required to set up a NAS configuration. Well you know what, it happened years ago. Get over it.

@Alex and @Monkey

@Alan - Yes I do realise it only has one disk, and therefore raid is an impossibility. But that's what I do not understand about producing a NAS device with just one disk. The idea is to have a central point to store your music, photos, video's, documents etc. You have to assume that many of these are irreplaceable. Personally I would not trust these to single point of mechanical failure such as single hard disk. Ok there is a backup facility but that requires you to actually do the backup periodically which most people won't do(and sods law says it will fail just before you do).

@Monkey. Its not IT snobbery, just practicality. Why should a unit that supports RAID mirroring be any more difficult to use for the IT illiterate than a non raid disk unit? Personally I would be happier with the knowledge that my data was likely to accessible despite component failures

If you want a NAS that does not support RAID, then this looks like a good unit, just don't complain when 5 years of family photo's go up in smoke when the hard disk fails.

@GhilleDhu. I have the same problem. IcyBox does a system which is reasonable priced and supports RAID 1, however there are some issues such as only supporting EXT 3 file system.

Icybox NAS-4220-B FTW ...

Dual bay SATA NAS which supports RAID-0, RAID-1 and JBOD and includes a bittorrent client, print server and various other bits and pieces of varying degrees of usefulness. Just stick a couple of drives in there and you're off - got a couple of WD 'Green' 1Tb drives in mine and it pulls about 25W under load.

Graham Barnish

Hi All,

I am Product Manager in the UK for the MyXerver, which means that I'm supposed to be able to answer any questions you have on it. I'll check back when I can to see any new issues but to answer a couple of comments:

RAID will be an option on the future versions of the MyXerver because of the second hard drive you can chain from the USB port. It's not something we've tried to include in this incarnation, but since you can set up backups to multiple drives mapped on the computer (the USB drive would appear as a separate Network Drive) you could very easily backup to both in one go. It's not technically RAID, but you've effectively then got a mirror of the first drive. The NT3600 is the USB version we produce which looks identical to the MyXerver.